No. 293: The Midwinter Salad You Crave
Plus: Quick chili, chicken meatballs, celery root, popovers, chickpeas, food news
🌹Radicchio, not roses
I left the Island last week with a bag of radicchio. I know, that probably seems like an odd thing to pack. But it wasn’t just any radicchio! It was a stunning mix of red and pink, stippled and speckled, ruffled and rippled radicchio, grown by Beetlebung Farm. The farm actually harvested it for Valentine’s Day, and posted about it on Instagram suggesting “radicchio not roses” for your sweetheart, echoing a campaign started by Natoora produce company a few years ago.
You might not be aware of how many different kinds of radicchio there are. (Rosso di Treviso and Castelfranco are just two.) Radicchio is a type of chicory that forms a head, but the leaf shape and colors can vary quite a bit from one variety to the next. Here’s a little primer that gives you a sense of the differences. Radicchio isn’t just delicious raw in salads - trying grilling wedges or tossing leaves in with roasted vegetables at the end of cooking.
